Artistic License
by Juxtaposie
Summary: It wasn’t until Astrid started hanging around that Hiccup became upset with himself for being insufficient at drawing people.


It wasn't until Astrid started hanging around that Hiccup became upset with himself for being insufficient at drawing people. He'd never really tried all that much, or ever cared to try, but one day she'd smiled at him over her shoulder – just a small, simple smile – and suddenly his fingers had just itched to pick up a pencil. That afternoon he began to notice things like the clean, curving lines of her body, and the way the light played in her golden hair, and by that evening he'd gone from simply watching her to outright studying her.

In the next few days, his sketches of Toothless and the other dragons were peppered with stick figures and clumsily drawn faces. Most of them had long, braided hair and – when he could manage it – large, expressive eyes.

If Astrid noticed anything about his sudden change in behavior, she didn't let on. More and more often they'd lapse into silence, usually when he dropped his side of the conversation because he was too busy staring at the color in her cheeks or memorizing the pattern of her freckles to keep going. It wasn't exactly uncomfortable, but it didn't feel quite normal either, especially when it turned into her laughing while he tried to catch up, and that was just another smile he had to remember for later, when he could get back to the relative privacy of his workbench. For some reason, the thought of her knowing that he'd taken to drawing her tied his stomach in uncomfortable knots.

Within a fortnight, he'd gone from noticing things about Astrid to noticing things about the other inhabitants of Berk, the details that separated them from their peers; the white-blonde hair and lazy, slouching posture of the twins, Gobber's prominent jaw and almost comical eyebrows, the way Snotlout's hair stuck out at all angles, no matter how long it had been crammed under a helmet. Every time something unique caught his eye, he just had to capture it – and with his new-found appreciation for the vast array of colors and forms in the people around him, he spent almost as much time drawing as flying. Sometimes only Toothless' nudging insistences were enough to drag him away.

He was mostly satisfied with his attempts to recreate the life around him on paper, but no matter how he tried he could never capture Astrid. If every line of a drawing was perfect, there was always one thing out of place that ruined the entire picture. The mouth was off, or the jaw line wasn't quite right, and no amount of watching her could show him where he'd gone wrong. He tried again and again, hung all the drawings up together to study them side by side – why had her eyes looked just fine in this one, but been so lifeless in that one? – but no matter how many attempts he made, nothing ever turned out just right.

Eventually Astrid started pestering him about his people-watching. Frankly, he was surprised she'd let it go for so long, especially without any teasing on her part. He was, however, completely unsurprised when her answer to his evasive mumbling was to snatch his notebook away from him. Toothless, against whom he was reclining, gave a start at his sudden squawk of dismay, but once the Night Fury had determined there was no threat around (since Astrid no longer counted, of course), he went right back to his nap, tail flicking in mild irritation at having been interrupted in the first place.

"Come on, Astrid," Hiccup pleaded, levering himself into a standing position and attempting to give chase. "It's not- there's nothing in there you'd- would you just give it back?!"

"No," she said, sidestepping as he made a grab for the book. "I wanna see what it is you're always doing with this thing." Holding it above her head, just out of his reach – he really hoped that next growth spurt came soon – she shoved him away, then tripped him when he attempted another swipe. He managed to miss most of the rocks on his landing. His leg creaked as he scrambled back to his feet, and Toothless made a huffing sound remarkably similar to laughter.

By the time he'd gotten up Astrid was a few yards away, the Night Fury situated firmly between them. She was flipping indelicately through the pages, eyes scanning over each little doodle, her eyebrows drawing down further and further for each page she turned until she was practically scowling. Flip, scan, scowl. Flip, scan, scowl.

Hiccup felt his face heat up when she shot him a glare. His mind was racing, but he couldn't find any words to explain away what was happening. In a rare moment, he decided to keep quiet. Toothless was looking between them with a little too much amusement in his expression. Hiccup made a _Mind your own business!_ face, and when he looked up again Astrid was marching around the dragon, her grip on one edge of the open book so tight that her knuckles were white.

"Who is this?" she demanded in a deceptively calm voice, shoving the book toward him.

"Uh…" Hiccup responded intelligently as he glanced at the page. It was covered in more failed attempts at the girl who was now trying to cram the notebook down his throat; a few faces from various angles with different expressions, half a dozen attempts at a nose in the lower right corner, a set of smiling lips. It suddenly occurred to him that he'd never tried to draw her with that scowl before.

"Who is she, Hiccup?" The book shook under his nose, insistent. "I don't recognize her, but there have to be a dozen pages in here covered with bits and pieces of her! How long have you been drawing her?"

"You really can't tell?" he said, blinking up at her before pursing his lips and tracing a finger over the smudged eyelashes on the largest drawing. "I didn't think they were _that _bad…"

"No," she said, snapping the book closed on his hand and letting go of it. "Not everyone goes around staring at girls like some… creepy creeping _thing_!"

Hiccup fumbled for a brief moment, catching the book before it could hit the ground. Trying to keep one eye on it, and the other on Astrid – who was standing with her arms crossed, gazing at him expectantly – he thumbed through the pages, looking for a particular sketch. When he found it, he held the notebook out to her, stepping up beside her so they could both look down at it.

"Well?" she said after a moment of silence, glancing sideways it him. "I'm still waiting."

She gave him a none-too-gentle nudge with her shoulder when he didn't reply, and finally he said, "I think it's the chin in the one." Then, ignoring her "What are you talking about?" he continued, "Something about the angle. It's all wonky. Hold still a second."

He pulled back from her, and made to hold the book up beside her so he could compare the drawing to the real thing, but she snatched it away from him again. In the ensuing silence, he made no move to take it back.

"This is me?" she asked after a few long moments, face carefully blank as she stared down at the book.

"It's supposed to be anyways," Hiccup said. His face felt uncomfortably warm, and his stomach did another one of those nausea inducing flip-flops at the answering blush he could see rising in Astrid's cheeks.

She closed the notebook, holding it out to him calmly. "You need more practice," she said, crossing her arms again when he took the book from her, trying to play off her own embarrassment. "Those drawings don't look anything like me. That girl, she's –"

"Cross-eyed?" he broke in, rifling through the pages again. "Wearing the wrong nose? She's kinda chubby in this one…"

"I was gonna say really pretty," Astrid finished, "but all those other things work too."

Hiccup didn't know what to say to that. He didn't think she'd take his disagreeing particularly well, even if he felt very strongly that she was more wrong about this than she'd ever been about anything in her entire life.

Smiling, he said, "I guess I'll just have to keep trying."


End file.
